


A Child’s Wish

by Charlie9646



Series: A Family Is [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Asexual Character, Asexual Severus Snape, Children, Drinking, F/M, Harry/Hermione friendship - Freeform, Not Epilogue Compliant, Severus Snape Lives, Severus/Lucius friendship, one nightstand, single parent, step parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: All Rose wants is to meet her father. Severus believes he ruins everything he touches. Hermione just wished for what was best for everyone. And Draco well he just wishes things could finally just settle down.
Relationships: Andromeda Tonks/Severus Snape, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, past Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Series: A Family Is [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557697
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	1. All That I Can Do

**Author's Note:**

> LunaRavenclaw9 and PurebloodPony helped me by Betaing this.
> 
> LunaRavenclaw9 though, you did so much more than that you helped me shape this story into something I could be proud of. You are one of the kindest people I have ever met. 
> 
> She helped me understand this form of Severus Snape is just as valid as any other. This wouldn’t be finished without her.

The day they placed Rose Eileen into Hermione’s arms for the first time she knew she had made the right choice to have her. That she was making the right choice not to give her up. It wasn't going to be an easy life, but it would be theirs. Hermione was barely nineteen years old the day Rose was born, and the little girl’s father was not there. He was likely hiding away from life in a bottle, no that was being unkind, he was never much of a drinker. He was likely working.

Severus Tobias Snape was the name she wrote in her clean penmanship on the birth certificate where it for the name of the father. The mediwitch was shocked when she wrote that. The woman dared to ask her ”are you sure?”

Hermione snarled at her, ”of course I am sure, I know the father of my child, and stop acting like it's such a shock. He's not that horrid you know, he can be kind when he wants to be…” she trailed off thinking about what led her here, as a single mother, with the daughter of her former professor. A man who should of never of been someone she considered as someone to sleep with.

Hermione signed her own name on the form and told the woman ”out with you, I just gave birth the last thing I need is your staring at me like I am some sort of zoo animal!”

She then realized it might be best to keep quiet in the close-knit wizarding world about who Rose’s father was. She did want the child to have a piece of her father, the man insisted he would help monetarily care for her, but she would not have his last name. He didn't think it would bring the little girl any good in her life. That the last thing she needed to be was labeled the daughter of a death eater.

So her middle name was Eileen after his mother, Hermione was going to make sure the little girl knew where she came from. She would not do to pretend that her father was someone else to the child. Very few people knew about Severus’s mother and fewer knew her first name. But when she could understand, Rose would.

And with time, Hermione hoped that Severus would ease up on his policy of ”I am only going to cause her pain, find some man to marry who knows how to be a father.”

He was a mentally unstable moron if you asked Hermione. His daughter needed him. She wasn't a student, she wasn't someone else’s child, and beyond that, for all his harsh words he never once laid his hands on his students. Not even when Harry took a peek as his memories. She knew in her heart of hearts, Severus was not Tobias. He would never lay a finger on Rose.

Give her a verbal thrashing, maybe. But, Hermione doubted he was capable of doing that to his own child. And if he did continue to hurt Rose even verbally,and if they ever set up visitation and he did her hurt Rose, she would put a stop to the visits at once. Though she doubted it would ever come to that.

It was a long story of how she became pregnant with Severus’s child. There was a breakup with Ron, a ministry party, and enough fire whiskey to nearly drown a horse. Neither of them remembered much of it. Bits and pieces. His fingers gripping her side, the way he felt inside of her, and realizing his hair was actually soft and shiny not the least bit greasy.

She woke up in his bed, in his small flat, left him a note on his pillow and bolted from the room. It was just a stupid mistake, a one night stand they would never speak of again, until it wasn't.

Hermione held Rose Eileen tightly in her arms, she kissed her daughter’s soft black curls. Her eyes were an extremely dark blue, although they were likely going to be brown like her mother’s or black like her father’s. Hermione with all that has happened and knowing there was no future between her and Severus Snape, beyond trying to raise their daughter, she would still go home with him that night if she knew what was going to happen. She hoped he would grow to see a child needed both of their parents.

Rose was worth it, and she hoped one day Severus will see that too.

********************

Another family was breaking apart down the hall in their own little way, Astoria Malfoy was dying as she brings her son into the world. And not one bit of magic could save her. Not even the magic of muggle medicine. She thinks to herself as she gets a glimpse of her son, and hopes someone is the mother to him I cannot be. She begged Draco to let someone else into his heart and love their son.

****************

Rose’s cries woke Hermione up a few nights later. They said they couldn't release her for a few days, the baby doesn't settle, so she breaks the rules and goes for a walk. She shouldn't be walking, but the room feels like it's closing in on her. She rarely ever sleeps and never with the door shut, but the lights of the hall keep her awake.

Her socked feet pad on the tile floor. Draco Malfoy, of all people, was sitting in an armchair outside of a room. His hair is greasy, his eyes are bloodshot, his hands shake. He looked more like a ghost than a man. He whispers to the newborn, ”I can't do this, I shouldn't have to do this alone,” he started crying now. He reminded her so much of how he looked that day at the manor. The desperation cutting lines he should not have into his face.

A mediwitch stood next to him. She said softly, ”we can take care of your son, Mr. Malfoy if you need us to give you the time to process things…”

He cut her off with a snarl and an angry red face, ”you are not taking him! He's my son! He's all I have left of her. She died for him because you couldn't do your fucking jobs!”

She said to him, ”Mr Malfoy, there was nothing we could do for your wife. She asked us to save your son if we had to choose.”

He stood up towered over her, he seems to reach for his wand and decided against it.”And I told you to save her! We could have another child! We could adopt one! She was on Merlin knows what potions, and you thought she was capable of making that choice for herself?”

The woman said softly to him, ”your wife told us that months ago when we gave her the news and what she was risking with carrying the pregnancy to term.”

He shut his eyes and fellback into the chair, ”and you should have consulted me as well, it wasn't just her choice to make.” He ignored the mediwitch now, and everyone but the newborn in his arms, Hermione is sure he doesn't even notice her. Draco whispered ”I should give him to someone who can raise him properly, to a couple who can love him properly. But, I can't, he's the last piece of her I have. The last piece of her that's alive.”

He turned to Hermione then finally noticing her, Rose is letting out her own quiet noises, seems she didn't like that they have stopped moving. He said to her ”Granger, what are you doing here?”

She struggled to find words to say and spit out ”the wardens think I need to stay here for a few more days, they aren't big on releasing unwed mothers to their own devices.”

He said, ”they aren't big on thinking single fathers can take care of their children, either. I wouldn't be on if they would have saved her…”

She said to him something she never expected to say, ”well I have been struggling to sleep, and since neither Rose or your son will settle, let’s be good little patients and go back to my room. Sometimes sharing a crib can help babies sleep. He's been through a lot the last few days, and I am sorry for your loss, and the sofa bed they insisted should be for my baby’s father when he comes is still in there. We both need some sleep, and maybe we can convince them to let us escape tomorrow. If not I did once break out of a bank on the back of a dragon, and surely a hospital can't be that hard”.

Instead of mocking her he followed her back to her room. And they both start to try to figure out what life can be.

************************

Hermione’s hands were shoved in the soapy water, she could do this with magic, but in her opinion, it didn't get them as clean. Scorpius had issues with his immune system, among other things. The way to avoid him getting sick was to keep things he was going to eat off of, or put in his mouth clean. They also had to prevent him from interacting with things that could cause bacteria or viruses to get inside of him. He couldn't get vaccines either.

The best protection for him was exactly what she was doing, and also just using good sense. But, the wizarding world wasn't one for good sense as she had learned over the years. Astoria gave her life for her son. Not only was heborn a month early, but he also had other minor and moderate health issues. Asthma, chronic respiratory infections, low muscle tone, he walked and talked later than most. His mind, however, was sharp as a whip.

Hermione and Draco did not plan to get together. Hell, they barely liked each other before that night in the hospital hallway. She, however, was a fixer, and Draco needed fixing. He needed someone to put up with the screaming, the crying, the nightmares. To help him take Scorpius to his healer appointments and so on.

It wasn't like a quick rush, it wasn't like a fire, it wasn't a flame under their skin. It was slower, steadier, they kissed on the children’s second Christmas. Rose took it upon herself to be Scorpius’s protector. She was only a few hours older than him but she clearly was the older sister. After that kiss though, which made no difference to the children, because they knew no different. But after the kiss, they were married in six weeks.

Ginny thought she was crazy. Crazy for how she and Draco had become, and nuts for marrying him. Ron hadn’t spoken to her since she told him she was pregnant with Rose, and who her father was. Harry said that he was not shocked and he had been prepared for years for just this. She was grateful for that, grateful that he didn’t judge or blame her.

Today was the first of the month, like he had every first of the month since Hermione came home with Rose, Severus would drop off the galleons they had decided on for child support. When she married Draco, she said at one point that it was no longer needed. And Snape went off on her. Not yelling or screaming, but his harsh tone struck her like a knife and taught her he did care for the child he had only seen out of the corner of his eye in passing and only in public places.

“She’s my child Hermione! I know she’s got a mother and a father, but allow me this. Let me this for my child, it helps me sleep at night. I shouldn’t raise her, but never think I do not love her. Never!”

And with that he was gone long cloak billowing in the wind, black hair hanging around him. He left her clutching the envelope with the galleons.

She shouted into the wind at no one that day, “if you love her so damn much than come and I don’t know stupid idiot, spend time with her! She needs her father. Her real father! She looks like you, she acts like you, hell sometimes she sounds like you! I don’t want anything from you Snape, but she needs you!”

Her neighbors must think she was crazy, it had been three years ago that she had done that. And still she never said her true thoughts to him. She drained the sink, rinsed off her hands, and dried them. Now that Rose had gotten older Draco tended to take the children out on this day if it wasn’t a school day. Snape wouldn’t even let Hermione tell him how their daughter was doing if she was around. He shoved the envelope in her hand and bolted.

He did seem to enjoy hearing about Rose, about her interest in potion’s, her accidental magic, her likes her dislikes, and the trouble she got into. Hermione hoped that one day these stories would convince him to truly meet his child.

Rose was as stubborn as a mule though and in Hermione’s opinion she got it from her father. She was going to slowly wave the carrot in his face of who she is, his daughter. She shouldn’t, but it was not in her opinion, a lack of desire to have Rose in his life, it was a belief he would bring no good to her life and that he would hurt her.

And therefore he needed therapy, to work through those issues, and she heard a few months ago after much pressure from Minerva he was finally getting it. He no longer worked for the woman, he ran a small potion’s shop. In Diagon Alley. Sometimes when she walked past it with Rose she considered walking in there pretending as if she did not realize it was his and pretending like she needed to purchase something.

As if to dare him to pretend with Rose right there in front of him that he was not her father. Her hair was as black as night, curly though, her skin pale, just stepping for a few minutes in the sun could turn her red on the hottest of days. Her eyes though they gave who her father was away. Her eyes were not brown, not even dark brown, they were black, coal-black. The same as her father, her grandmother and every Prince before them.

Hermione dared not to hide who Rose’s father was from others because just looking at the child gave it away. And even if that did not, the moment she stepped into Hogwarts that everyone would know. They would announce her name, the name it should be, in the eyes of wizarding law that is, Rose Eileen Snape.

The little girl deserved to know who the man was who her dad was before that day. No, it should not be up to history books filled with lies to tell you who your father was. Rose had started to walk up to strange men, magical and muggle some were kind, some told Hermione to keep a better hand on her child, and others creeped Hermione out.

She had to talk to Severus today and get him to see reason. Rose was getting too old to lie to. Hindsight was twenty-twenty they should have dealt with this before she could; talk before she could walk, before she understood Draco was not her biological father, and she was not a Malfoy.

Even if time turners still existed this was not something they could be used on. She needed to put on her big panties and speak to the father of her daughter and try to get through to him, just like Minerva had been.

The loud knock on the door echoed throughout the small cottage. Hermione reached to tie back her hair, and forgets it, Snape of all people doesn’t care what she looks like. It was October first, a Saturday. She counted back from twenty and then walked to the door, unlocking it, she was faced with Snape who dropped his half raised hand, he was preparing to knock again.

Hermione took him. His long black wool cloak. His black shirt, buttoned up to the throat, likely to hide the scars from the snake bite that nearly took his life. Black slacks that showed off he was really as thin as his narrow potion stained fingers suggested. Hi pale skin was the same as Rose’s though hers was far healthier. His hair was unfashionable long, to his shoulders, shiny and limp. He recently had been brewing, she was sure of it. His eyes though we're sharp and intelligent. She was twenty-five now, a grown woman, a mother, a wife, an unspeakable, and yet his height and presence made her feel if not like a schoolgirl again. Shehad a child with the man, she knew more about him than most people alive today, and yet he still made her feel small.

She didn't think he even meant to, it was just the way Severus Snape carried himself. As if he was waiting for the next person to raise their wands to him with a curse or hex on their lips, or more likely where the next attack would come from. He embodied the statement of constant vigilance if anyone had ever done so. Even more than Moody himself, who had been the one to say it.

Her daughter may have inherited his height, his hair color, his eye color, and skin tone from him but Hermione promised herself she would not inherit his view of the world. That you were the dog being kicked or the one doing the kicking.

”Hermione”, he said softly as he cleared his throat. “How is she doing?”

Hermione wanted to scream he couldn’t bear to even say her name. She snarled, “she has a name you know.”

He cringed at her statement and said ”I do, but it's better this way…”

Hermione got in his face, she had to be on her toes for this and she's on the top step and he's not, she's tired of his self-loathing bullshit, when he's clearly just as desperate to know about her as she was him, “better for who?”

Severus recoiled from her as if she had turned into the snake who tried to rip out his throat. “Better for her, better not to be the daughter of a death eater”.

Hermione placed her hands on her hips, “ I think it's better for you, Severus, you're a coward ”.

He bends down inches from her face ”you of all people, have no right to call me a coward?”

Hermione laughs mockingly the rage she felt for six years, maybe even seven, filled her brown eyes, ”I am not the one scared of what my own child might think of me if she knows the truth.”

Severus whispered in her ear, ”I remember some of that night, Hermione, it was not Ronald Weasley’s, mine or even you're now husband’s you cried out in pleasure. It was the name of one man… It was Potter’s.”

Of course, he would remember her worst secret, something that she has long since gotten over, the man who would never be hers. The man who she hoped those nights in that tent would make a move, but his heart had never been hers. It had always belonged to someone else.

It belonged to the woman who was now his wife, Ginny Weasley now Ginny Potter. Her friend. One of the closest female friends she had ever had. Well and Luna. But Luna was out trying to discover the world with her now-husband. She dragged Neville into the great wide world, and he seemed to enjoy it even though he would never say it.

She scowls at him ” You Severus Snape have no room to talk about past feelings for someone you cannot have two words, Lily Potter. If I remember correctly you cried out her name in the heat of passion as well.”

His face turns to a dangerous smile “ But thanks to Potter, everyone knows my dirty little secret, does anyone know yours?”

She looks away from him, to stare at the children’s toys that litter their front lawn. The pair of bicycles one blue and one dark purple. Rose had refused pink, and when Draco had suggested it, she threw a fit. She wanted the neon green one, and this was their compromise, next time Hermione was going to buy her whatever bike she wanted, other’s opinions be damned. She was not going to teach her child what her parents taught her that others' opinions mattered.

Rose was going to be seen and was seen as the daughter of one Severus Snape, the wizarding world was going to make a choice about what they thought of her long before she stepped in the room. And she needed to learn now before she could really understand what they thought of her, that she was valuable, that her opinions mattered, that she mattered no matter what they said.

No younger version of a child like that of James, Sirius, Remus, Lily, Draco, Pansy or Peter was going to make her child hate herself for simply being herself.

She pleaded to him desperate to get him to understand, making herself look softer, ”Severus she goes up to random men and asks if they're her father…”

************************

His eyes turn huge, the ramifications of such actions hit him like a ton of bricks. How dangerous it might be for a child to do such a thing. With a decent man he would laugh it off, but if she did it out of sight, to someone with less than good intentions. It was like the promise of a kitten or a puppy in a van, but better. Like money to a kid who knows they are poor, like food for a starving child. Children didn't always have the best of sense, by far. He was a teacher at one point he of all people should know that. Good sense or lack thereof was made potion’s so hard to teach.

She was vulnerable in a not so different way than he had been, the same way that led him to the clutches of Lucius Malfoy and then to the dark lord.

He sighs loudly ” Tell her then, tell her about me. Tell her who I am to her. ” He digs out of a pocket in his cloak. He's been saving, these three photos for the day this came. He didn't want this day to come but he was the type to always be prepared.

One is of his mother. Her tired face, in her ”Sunday best”, her lank black hair, weary eyes, he could swear if he looked hard enough he could see the covered up with cheap makeup black eye she had been sporting the day this photo was taken. It was the only time the Evans family was able to convince her to join them at church one Sunday. She wore a dress that made her look like a witch it was a dark green, long-sleeved and too the floor. She looked so out of place. But he still remembered how happy that dress made her. Tobias burned it that night.

She never wore a pretty dress again and she never went to church again either.

The next was of him from school. He stood next to Lily Minerva of all people had taken it, she gave one copy to Lily and one to him. This one was magical and moved. They both were in their school robes.

And the last was of him now well a few years ago, it was snapped by Minerva again. She insisted everyone needs at least one good photo of themselves. He disagreed, he had mirrors, he was not a vampire he could easily see what he looked like if he wanted to. He knew how ugly he was, he didn't need to see it in a moving photo.

He hands them to her and said”give her these and tell her about me, but I will not meet her in person. Tell her I abandoned you two, make Draco look like some hero and her real dad. Make me into a monster it's for the best.” He hands her the envelope of Galleons and turns away.

He stalks down the small muggle road like did when he was called ”the dungeon bat”, and he cries. Severus cries for his mother. The woman who ”fell down the stairs” bullshit, fucking bullshit that was, he pushed her. Severus couldn't prove it though. He cried for his daughter who ended up with a horrible father such as he, he cried for Hermione who would spend the rest of their daughter’s at least childhood, and better yet whole life tied to him, he cried for Rose who deserved a better man as her father, and she had one, but Draco couldn't claim a child with jet black hair and eyes was his biological child, but most of all, for himself because he wishes he was capable of being the father Rose was crying out for.

Merlin, he needed a drink. And he was going to get one, well more than one. But wasn't that exactly what got him and Hermione into this mess? It didn't matter he needed a drink.


	2. In A Different Light

Chapter 2

Hermione pulled the covers over her head, she didn't want to face the day. It was Sunday-the day elder Malfoys were going to visit-just like they did every other Sunday. Narcissa with her critical eyes, Lucius who just couldn't keep just keep his barely appropriate to be heard by children's ears comments to himself. They were Draco’s parents though. She was, however, grateful they lived here in this small cottage, just the four of them, and not at the manor where Bellatrix had tortured her for the sheer pleasure of doing so.

Draco softly opened the door and sat on the bed. He clearly had been up for hours. He rarely slept the whole night through. Sometimes he would nap during the day while the children were at school and his business allowed him to. He was a curse breaker, but unless he was out in the field he was home where he did most of his work.

The husband of Hermione Malfoy, formerly Granger it seemed made the goblins a little uneasy even if they had long since been repaid for the damage the ”golden trio” had caused. If he wasn't so good at his job they likely would have fired him, but he was good at it. Really good. Far better than she would ever be, and that was saying something.

She sat up and he handed her the mug of tea, ”you know we don't have to have them over if you don't want to, right?”

Hermione muttered, sleep still in her eyes, “they are their grandparents, and I can tolerate them every two weeks. And truth be told I need to talk to your father, he's likely one of the only people who can get through to Severus, that he not only should see Rose in person for himself, but he should talk to her for her sake. He's her father after all and Lucius is one of the few people alive he calls a friend. Minerva has tried for years with no luck, now it's time to bring in the big guns and there is no bigger gun than the man who convinced him to join Voldemort when he was just a teenager.”

She drank her tea in silence, kissed her husband’s forehead, and got ready for the day. The house was already filled with the noises of children. One foot out of the bedroom and she already had to shout, ”ROSE do not poke the cat in the ribs, would you like that if I did that to you?”

The little girl’s black slightly oily curls stuck to her face and stuck out in disarray. She said, softly ”sorry mum, but Scorpius dared me to.”

Hermione said, ”and if I dared you to jump off a bridge, would you?”

Rose shook her head.

Her mother said, ”we don’t poke animals, and if we do they might nip or scratch us, okay? Now, dad hasn't made breakfast yet has he?”

The girl nodded and said, ”no he hasn't yet mum, he was trying to get some work done this morning.”

She said to her children, ”well what do you guys want for breakfast then?” They sounded off answers and she thought to herself some parts of Sunday's she really did like. She would miss this when she sent the kids off to Hogwarts. Sometimes she didn't want to send them. It was a silly thing to think. Scorpius had needed extra care over the years, little things but still things, and Rose, well Rose never had done great in crowds.

Maybe this was why Narcissa refused to send Draco to Dumstrang, at least at Hogwarts he was closer than eastern Europe.

In an hour or so the elder Malfoys would come and she would have to play nice, but maybe she could also get Lucius to do her a favor. Harry might be willing to help as well. Those two working together surely were capable of getting through Snape’s stubborn head.

*********************

As the children played in the yard on toy brooms, Lucius asked Hermione,”you want me to do what?”

Hermione said for a second time ”I want you to talk to Severus about why he should actually see Rose and interact with her. Talk to him about what it actually means to be a father.”

Lucius said, “and you think I am the person to do this? And why I even would?”

Hermione muttered, “because Malfoy I don't ask much of you, neither does Draco, and you had nearly lost your own son because of your stupidity. Because Severus was once a good friend of yours, and because you love Rose.”

Lucius takes a sip of his tea and said, “he’s still a good friend of mine, by the way. I understand why he did what he did, and I can even respect it. Shacking up with you, on the other hand, I question his sanity the same way I do my own son’s.”

She wanted to strangle her father in law. He was the biggest asshole in all of England. She laughed at her younger self, who thought that about Draco. He even at his worst wasn't a tenth as bad as his father was.

Hermione said, “ will you or will you not?”

Lucius went on, ”and I do care about Rose. I think Severus would be a good influence on her. And might even be able to explain why her magic acts…”

Rose has the toy snitch snap to her hand with magic. It doesn't have the protective spells on it that the adult version does, and it's a bit larger.

“As I said she can control it, which is quite odd most children can't control their accidental magic”.

Hermione asked, “so you will?”

He nodded and said, “I might visit the bar he tends to go on Friday night. Libby's around six most Fridays at least.”

She knew where that was, and she will also make sure Harry is there, to either help or be her ears of sorts. But she doesn't tell Lucius that. He didn't need to know and likely would take back his offer if she did tell him.

************************

Harry saw Severus Snape as soon as he walked into the bar. He was leaning over in the barstool, so unlike himself, fire whiskey sat in front of him. He looked older than he was, but younger than he had at Hogwarts.

Lucius sat near him, and they were arguing. Harry sat a few stools away and ordered a butter beer. The barmaid nodded and went to work on getting it.

Severus stopped his snipping at his friend to turn to Harry and said, “still drinking like a schoolboy, Potter?”

He sighed at his former professor and snipped, ”it’s better than acting like a schoolboy about your own child. Sir.”

Severus snarled, ”you don't know anything about my reasoning or my relationship with the young

Mrs. Malfoy, so stop pretending you do, Potter.”

Harry said,”well I know Rose asks every Christmas to meet her father.”

Severus said,”well that's odd because she has one.”

Lucius leaned in further towards the conversation, his once blonde thick mane of hair is now thin and white. Time even aged Malfoys, just as it aged and changed everyone else.

He said to both his old friend and his former enemy, ”Draco loves Rose with all of his heart, he parents her no different than he does Scorpius, but he does not lie to her. He will not lie to her.

She knows Severus now you are her father, and before that, he was honest in a way you can be to a child, that someone else was her biological father. Wouldn't it be better to see her, before her heart fills with hate and despair and she goes hunting for you?”

Severus picked up his whiskey glass and takes a large sip. His greasy strands of black hair fall further into his thin face. The only thing that is peeked out was his nose, which as an adult didn't seem as large to Harry as it once did when he was a child. Maybe it was just how children perceived people that they hate. If he was going to be honest what made it look unattractive was how many times it had been broken, not the size of it.

He wondered to himself what was it that Hermione ever saw in this broken man who was old enough to be her father? Surely it was not his looks. Surely not his charm. Was it that her heart at the time Rose was convinced just as broken as this man’s was? And if so who had broken it?

Surely not Ron, or maybe it was. They never seemed close, who knows, maybe he was around about that. Maybe it shattered her when they had broken up and he ended up with Pansy of all people. But, he could not blame them either, Ron and Pansy that is. They had bonded over the time they helped rebuild Hogwarts together. The girl had lost everything in the war, her parents, her home, and even a little sister who was not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts.

So while Hermione was away with him trying to find her parents, and they did so, well Ronsy as the press called it became a thing.

And that's how possibly Hermione Granger ended up the night of their award ceremony ball as, heroes of the wizarding world, the thought still made Harry want to gag. People seeing them as a hero that is, in bed with the man before him. Or maybe it was some other unknown reason, who knows.

Severus spoke after ordering another shot of fire whiskey, ”my time as a Hogwarts professor proves I have no business around school children, even my own”.

Harry and Lucius said together, ”but she's your daughter!”

Severus laughed mockingly, ”more reason not to interact with her, I might make her more like me than she likely already is.”

Harry said something he never thought he would say to Severus, hinting at the man’s memories that he had given him as he lay there dying before Kreacher had rushed in to save the former headmaster, ”you’re acting just like your father Snape!”

Severus snarled,”you don't know a God Damn Thing about my Father, Potter!”

Lucius’s fish like blue-grey eyes widened in utter shock. As if he could not believe what Harry just dared to suggest.

Harry ignored the pureblood wizard and said, ”really? Because from your memories he did a hell of a lot of ignoring you. Treating you crappy, and doing the bare-bones minimum when it came to your mother.”

Severus stood up from the barstool and turned to face Harry at his full height, ”I am doing this Potter, so I do not end up being like he was to me! So in your stupid just like your father, logic, I am doing the exact opposite? Perfect little Potters in their perfect little worlds judging the fucking rest of like your so special. Guess what? You Aren't!”

Harry could smell the whiskey on the man’s breath as his former professor towered over him. He was at least tipsy, possibly drunk. He never had seen the man drunk before, that night having left before Hermione and the man had actually gotten plastered.

Lucius said to his friend ”Severus... He does have a point.”

Severus’s robes slappedHarry in the legs as he spun to face his friend. His eyes widening at his friend his face turned hard, but also desperate and painful. ”You agree with him?”

Lucius looked through his own white hair, his face aged far beyond his years, the war, prison, the magic that seemed to break him, the blocks put on him by the ministry. The man could do basic spells, even floo, and aparate, but he would never be a threat again, he never would be powerful again. He would never be the wizard that brought fear to people’s eyes. He was half the man he once was.

He said to his friend, ”I do, Rose needs you. Just as you once needed your mother and a man who was a far better father than that brute you had been given by fate.”

Severus fell to the dirty, grimy barroom floor, leaned his head against the wood, not caring that his robes or hair will pick up the grime. He makes a noise that might have been a cry if it would have been anyone else but Snape.

”Fine” he cried out sharply, “I will see her. Fine I will spend time with her. Tell Hermione this, I know she and Minerva must haveput you to up to this.”

The two far more sober men helped him out of the bar once their tabs are paid. One each side. The one he fought beside in the first wizarding war, and the one he fought beside in the second. He tripped over his long narrow feet, and they hold him up.

He's as thin as a man can be and not be starving, but his sheer height makes him awkward to help along.

When they get him outside of the bar, Harry asked, ”can you sidelong him? He doesn't seem up to traveling himself and I don'treally know where his house.”

Lucius pulls up the hood of his cloak, and said, ”no I can't, the ministry limited my power as punishment for...”

Harry finished the sentence ”for the second war, was there and partly the reason that's all you got, you know that right?”

Lucius looked down at his dragon hide boots as if they were the most interesting thing in the world, and not something he had for over a decade. He said, “I know that Potter, no need to remind me.”

Severus groaned, ”make up your mind of what you're going to do, my head is killing me”. 

Seemed now the buzz that had loosened his tongue was dead and had turned quickly into a hangover. He then tried to shove them both away, and they gripped his forearms tighter.

Harry said, ”we could take a cab, or we could walk depending on how far it is away.”

Lucius asked, “what is a cab?”

Severus sneered, “purebloods think they know so much, think they understand the world around them when the truth is they don't know a damn thing!”

Harry groaned, “Hermione could of warned me your still a bastard when you are drunk.”

Severus turned to Harry and said, “just for you Potter, just for you, I have been told I am quite a happy drunk.” He laugh3; at his own stupid joke.

Happy is not the word Harry would use, maybe more lonely? Surely more honest, but for a man like Snape those two must go hand and hand don't they?

Then he half bent over on the side of the street and vomited on Harry’s and his own boots. Lucius somehow managed to sidestep.

The eldest of the trio asked again, ”what’s a cab?”

Harry said, ”like the knight bus” as he spelled both his and Severus’s shoes clean.

Lucius sighed, “I don't think he's up to walking, and you don't know the location of his home. I can't sidelong him, you can't enter his wards anyway, and he needs to be put to bed. Beyond that, if he did he would likely splinch all three of us. I have enough money for the knight bus.”

Harry used the spell to call for it, knowing that if Lucius did there is a chance it might not even show up, and Snape clearly is in no condition to. He makes no comment that he does not need the spoiled pureblood man to pay for him.

Malfoy senior, since the end of the war, has been taken down a few notches, and Harry wasn’t the bratty boy to shove a sock in a book to free a house-elf, though truth be told with all that happened he would free Dobby again a hundred times over.

The purple bus came to a screeching halt in front of them. Harry stepped forward onto the bus, Lucius half led half carried, Severus.

Stan said, ”can’t take their kind, others might not want to get on if they are on.”

Harry snarled, ”Snape nearly died for you and for me! Malfoy is just helping me get him home. And we will pay a double fair for each, does that change matters?”

Stan nodded and accepts the money from Lucius’s hand.

The odd trio found a seat in the back, after Lucius told the conductor where they were heading.

Lucius turned to Harry and said, ”you do know now, he's going to ask that from people like myself right?”

Harry said to him, ”why does it matter? Both you and Draco afford it.”

Lucius said to him, ”surely we can, but what about young disowned Theo Nott? Or the new Mrs. Weasley? Or even Severus? We shouldn't be treated like second class citizens. 

We shouldn't be treated like others, in the society we were born and raised in. We all were punished in big and small ways. Severus will never teach again, I am surely limited in my magic, as is my wife. Mr. Nott and Mrs. Weasley helped rebuild Hogwarts.

My son cannot leave the country, and regularly has his worked files gone through by your department. We have paid for our crimes, surely that's enough?”

Harry muttered, ”but that's exactly what you wanted to do to muggleborns, and half-bloods like myself isn't it? Make us less than?”

Lucius looked out the window of the bus and said, ”Mr. Potter have you ever truly been proud of something? Proud of what you have done? Or your name? Or where you are from?”

Harry said,” a few things, yes.”

Lucius then added ”that is how I and those like me were raised to believe being pureblood was. Something to be proud of, surely as your father was, though you never did get to know him well enough to understand that.”

Harry couldn't help but snarl, ”because of your kind!”

Lucius said with a smile, a sad smile all the same, ”Mr. Potter, I was a piss poor death eater, I was beaten a few times by children. By yourself and my now daughter in law. In the end, my only goal was to keep my son and wife alive. I am not a madman,

I am not the Lestrange brothers or my now-dead sister in law. He was not that insane when Severus and I joined him. He seemed like he wanted to make good change, true change.And by the time I realized just like Severus had, I had sold my soul to a madman I was too far in to leave.”

Harry wentto say something, but the drunk man cut him off.

Severus groaned, ”will you please do me a bloody fucking favor and shut it? I feel like I am going to be sick.”

They are both quiet then. Minutes later the bus pulls to a stop. Harry asked, “Is this right?”

He thought to himself this is so muggle, wait this is where Snape grew up, which means his mother’s childhood home is not too far from here.

Lucius nodded and they help Snape off the bus together, their feet hitting the crumbling sidewalk which likely needed replacing decades ago.

Why would he still live here? Thought Harry it wasn't filled horrible memories, not unlike Pivet Drive was filled with for him. Surely he would live somewhere else?

Lucius answered the question for him, ”his other punishment was they seized his vaults. All the money he had saved from the years of working at that school. What little Dumbledore left him, not that he wanted that, mind you.

Whatheadmaster left him, he called it blood money. Said the bastard couldn't cleanse his actions with some Galleons. He has no choice, it's here or his small shop, which he rents mind you.”

Harry said, “why didn't you help him buy somewhere else and sell this place?”

Lucius sighed, ”I have tried to, he refused. He's quite stubborn if you haven't noticed.”

Harry nodded and said, ”yeah he rather is. Said he didn't want me to defend him, that he would rather go to Azkaban.”

As they bring Snape inside Lucius said,“why did you?”

Harry said softly, “because I am trying to be more like Remus Lupin, less like Dumbledore or my father.”

The other man just nodded. They helped Snape out of cloak, his boots, robes whichthey like look the same from when he taught, and then they led up the stairs to the master bedroom, the passed a closed door, that Harry knew was once the man’s room as a child.

The master bedroom was plain, filled with bookshelves, a full bed a solid oak wood headboard, dark green blankets, white sheets. Next to each side is nightstands, the only space not taken up by bookshelves was the wall the bed is against and where the matching to headboard wardrobe was.

Lucius didn’tspeak as he turned down the bed. It was as if he'd done this before, maybe he had. Snape and him are friends after all. Severus half came to, took off his black high collared shirt, which showed off a pale scarred body. Though his throat was by far the worst. Then he half took half kicks off his slacks. Harry just watched as Lucius tenderly helped one of his few living friends to bed.

For a half-second Harry wondered if they are together, but one was married, and the other was clearly in love with his mother...

Severus just snickered, ”Potter, wrong letter of the alphabet soup you kids have come up with today to describe things”.

Harry snarled, ”stay out of my mind Snape!”

The drunk man laughed, ”then control your thoughts Potter and stop shouting, anyone with half-assed skills of controlling their mind could hear you. I am neither gay or whatever else you're going to think.

I am asexual. Meaning I don't want to anything with anyone. I can have romantic feelings for a woman. That's partly why your mother and I were ill-suited for one another.

Your clearly proof of that. And no it doesn't mean I am incapable of having sex, before you ask. Rose is my daughter. I am quite capable of it! I just find it a rather useless practice and gross.”

The man got under his covers and muttered, ”now both of you get the bloody hell out! I would like to get some sleep.”

They leave quickly, Lucius locked the door behind himself. Harry turned to him before they both aparated back to their respective homes.

”What changed your mind about the Dark Lord?”

Lucius sighed and then answered him, ”four things. When he went after a baby the same age as my own son; when he made my son try to do an impossible task for a boy his age; when he snapped my wand to make it easier to kill you; and finally when he had a woman eaten by a snake on my dining room table, like it was a sane thing to do.

I realized in that moment, like all those with a few brain cells to their name, that he was utterly insane.”

Harry knew who he's referring to, the former muggle studies professor. He can't even bear to think her name, it was such a needless death far more than any of the others.

He said to the older man, ”you know she was a mother right?”

Lucius nodded and said, “and I pay her daughter’s tuition to Hogwarts. Oddly enough she's a Slytherin. Shows you how much times can change in a few short years. It's the least I can do, I can't bring her mother back any more than you can. Or anyone else.”

Before they apparated away, it started to rain and Lucius adds softly ”Mr. Potter be grateful for what my old friend did because I can promise you, that you would have not won the war without him.” And with that Lucius is gone, but Harry still softly whispered into the cool rainy evening, ”I know, and that's why I defended him.”


	3. An Open Heart

Hermione was sitting at her desk at the ministry, she should be working, that’s what they were paying her to do anyway. She should be reading the most boring thing she had ever laid her eyes on, but instead, she was nervously waiting for her lunch, so she could speak to Harry, about last Friday.

The memo was written about the effects of muggleborns on magical bloodlines. She did not want to read about how she, her daughter and all those like them were polluting the magical lines. More so with the fact, Hagrid had been right with the thing he had said no wizard alive today was not half-blood or less, including her husband. The Malfoys did not end up like the Gaunts or Blacks, because they followed the three generations rule. Which did make them not true pureblood's, but they were half-bloods, no different than Rose or Severus.

So, to read a memo which declared all that she knew was false about muggle blood in the magical world, was quite foolish even if that what was what she was being paid to do. But, when she tried to disagree with them her boss gave her issues.

Better to say nothing than to be reminded of her place regularly, even if she didn't believe it was her place. She was a muggleborn in a rigid society of pureblood and even half-blood society.

She was a member of the”golden trio”, and yet married to a former death eater, her daughter’s father was the man who conned both the light and dark side of the wizarding world. She was the person who was neither solid in either world.

Those who tended to support people like the elder Malfoys beliefs thought she was the scum of the magical world, and those who supported muggleborns thought that she had turned traitor. That she had birthed one enemy’s daughter and married another.

She was once again an outsider in her own world, but she was used to that. She had been an outcast before she went to Hogwarts, and then once all hell broke loose in the magical world. In all honesty, she didn't know what it felt like to be considered normal or whatever that meant to the rest of the wizarding world.

That was why Rose needed her father, he understood what exactly she felt growing up in the magical world, but not fully. Hermione admitted being a half-blood, was very different than what she knew or even Draco knew, it was even different than Hermione’s experience.Because unlike her mother, Rose truly of both worlds, not just someone who was had lived in both. Not even Harry could understand that.

Harry snapped her out of her train of thought, by tapping his fingers in a strange staccato pattern on her desk. She stared at his hand for a second and then spoke, ”Harry, let's blow this popsicle stand.”

He raised one eyebrow at her, and she said, ”it means let's go”.

He nodded and she got up, quickly getting on her coat. He seemed to understand that she did not want to have their conversation here, she did not enjoy being stared at, even though she had spent years perfecting the devil may care attitude.

Severus as a Hogwarts professor had been a mystery, at least to his students. Younger than most of their other professors, and far harsher, but also strange in a way you couldn't put your finger on. That had not much to do with his status as a spy, at least Hermione did not think so.

He just was strange. Maybe that's what had caused her to end up in bed with him, Hermione at that point in her life had a thing for strange things, but after Rose, she put that behind her.

Most of her fellow unspeakables had been his students as well, and she had learned long ago they loved any dirt they could get on Severus Snape, she was quite sure though at least one person in her office would share any truly juicy information with the daily prophet. Because other things about Hermione’s family had been leaked once before.

Sometimes Hermione wished she didn't help save the wizarding world. Because it seemed they didn't understand the concept of none of your God Damn business.

She and Harry walked a few blocks into muggle London. She liked this area it felt so different than the wizarding world. She heard at least three different languages being spoken, English of course, but Spanish as well, and maybe Arabic.

The latter shocked her, it was beautiful and different. The woman wore a beautiful purple, hijab, she believed it was called. Her long skirt reminding her of a painting she had seen in a gallery as a child, with its floral pattern.

Sometimes Hermione wondered who she would have been had she had not been a witch. That was a silly thing to wonder, but sometimes she did. She loved her magic, it felt as natural as breathing, but other times it seemed all it was good at was splitting groups down the middle.

Her mother, Anna, had laughed at that, saying child us muggles do the same, just with religion and skin tone. So the Arabic woman was ”other” just as Hermione was on a street in the wizarding world. Just as Rose, was would one day be when she grew up and understood how the world viewed her that is.

Hermione hoped the world would be different before that happened, but she was growing more and more a realist with each passing year, Her children would not get to be adults in a ”better world” because most people liked the world the way it was. 

She barely mentioned those thoughts to anyone, surely not Draco who most of the time felt as if he had the weight of the world on his very shoulders, surely not Ginny who was struggling to raise three children under the age of six. Harry, it seemed struggled with being a father, at times.

Hermione’s closest friend had no role model of how to be a parent. Maybe Arthur Weasley, but he had never been Harry’s father figure day in and day out. Even though the war was long since over, it still reached out and touched their lives to this day.

Luna and Neville were doing Merlin only knew what, last she heard on an Island called Fiji. Looking for some rare magical bird(?) Sometimes she just didn't know with those two.

Ron and she never regained the close friendship they had before he got with Pansy, and before she became pregnant with Rose. But, Harry was the person she wanted to tell about her feeling of doom that sometimes surrounded her, but she dared not to for fear of what he may think of her once he learned what she carried leftover from the war, the one that nearly destroyed them all.

They stopped at a small cafe, one that sold Harry’s favorite tea and type of biscuit Hermione thought was to die for. They were regulars here and just we're waved to go sit at their regular table. They didn't even need menus to know what they were ordering. Their waitress nearly knew their orders without coming over, only bothering because Hermione’s drink order was the only thing that regularly changed.

She had lemonade instead of her usual tea or coffee this time. Not needing the caffeine to give her even more jitters.

Hermione said to Harry, ”food’s ordered now spill. How did Friday go?”

Harry told her every detail, and she took it in as if it was the most important thing she had ever heard in her life, because in a way it was. This would change Rose’s life and their family as a whole.

She said softly to him, “so he's agreed? That's wonderful Harry. I am grateful to you. You don't even know how much this means to me, and Rose. And over time I think this will mean even more to her. And you did a lot for Severus as well, even though I doubt he would admit it.”

Harry laughed, ”he wouldn't be Snape if he did now would he? But, honestly Hermione he's gotten better since he and Andromeda got together. Andy just has a way with him no one else seems to have.”

Hermione said as she patted Harry’s hand, ”I think it's because she of all people understand what he's been through, even more than Lucius, or we do. She's also someone who knows about his mother. I heard once their mothers went to school together.”

Harry asked, ”Why didn't you ask Andy to help with him, surely she would if been better than anyone else?”

She said to him, ”because she refused to help. She said she was not going to try and control him, that their partnership is one that is on truly equal footing and she was not going to ruin that, not even to help Rose.”

Harry is shocked by that, but just nodded, he's learned over the years when Andy wants to be odd, well she can be odd.

Hermione looked up from her hands and her sandwich was in from of her, they both shut up, and started eating their lunch. They would talk more another lunchtime, but at least now Hermione knew Severus was going to try that was all she was asking for, was for him to try. He did not need to be the world's greatest dad, he just needed to be her dad.

*******************

Severus’s head was in Andromeda’s lap. Her small fingers running through his black hair. Somewhere between petting and brushing. It did not matter what you called it, he found it comforting and she found the motion soothing, that is what mattered to him.

He sighed into her touch. She asked him softly as if not wanting to break the moment that they were having, ”so, you are going to meet Rose in person?”

He said in a rather quiet voice, ”yes I am, going to meet her. They convinced me, but I always knew in myself that the day would come that I would have to. Or that she would find out when she was older and hunt me down. A small part of me wondered if I would be dead before she was old enough to though.”

Andy shook her head and said, ”Severus you don't believe that, even with your father, half-bloods easily can live into their eighties, and look at Dumbledore!”

He said nothing and then she got the hint.

She said, ”you didn't think it would be by natural causes, did you?”

He responded with a softy, ”no”.

Andy said, ”Severus you need to speak to your healer if you're having these thoughts again... I love you Severus, and I know that's hard for you to believe, but I do. You have so much to live for, and I don't think I can take losing you too!”

Severus said to her as he sat up and picked up her chin, ”Andy I did, you just know how I sometimes get. There is no perfect combination of potions, and even if there was they would likely have a ton of side effects, mine weren't working as well as they should, when I was thinking like that.”

He took her into his arms and said, ”Dragons couldn't drag me away from you Andy, they couldn't drag me away. You're stuck with me, and I you.”

She said, ”want me to be there when you meet her for the first time? I don't think I should bring Teddy, but one of the Weasleys can watch him, or Harry can. He's been dying for more time with him. Well both of them have.”

Severus said, ”I would be extremely grateful if you were there.”

Andy said, ”then I will be, now what do you want for dinner?”

They settle on Indian takeout his favorite, to most they seem like an old married couple, and yet they have only been together for two years. Andy struggled to accept Ted’s death. She struggled to process Dora’s death. Beyond that, she cared quite a bit for Remus.

She wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of her daughter with him when she first found out. It had nothing to do with his condition, or even he his age, it had more to do with his personality. The same reason he left Tonks when he found out that she was pregnant with Teddy.

However, they were gone and she had to continue on.

Severus picked her dish of food his long fingers disappearing just as quickly as they came up, whatever he had stolen was quickly plopped into his mouth. Andy elbowed him in the ribs, she laughed, ”eat your own, and keep your hands to yourself.”

He pulled her close to him and kissed her forehead. Severus said, ”I love you, you know that, right?”

She nodded, and then said, “and I do you, but you still shouldn't still people’s naan because you didn't order any.” She took a sip of her soda and smiled at him.

He laughed, “said the person who put in the order.”

Andy said, “you have a point, now dig in I would actually like to go on a walk this evening before the sun has totally set.”

They finished their dinner, pulled on their cloaks, and took their quiet walk around the park near his home. They held hands, she made no comment about the industrial neighborhood he lived in, a block down children we're playing in the street.

Severus smiled down at Andy, he didn't expect to grow to care for her when he invited her out to dinner on a whim. She was not someone he expected to grow to care for, or even love. She accepted him for he was, but she also felt the same.

Andromeda thought that she and Ted would grow old together, for most of their lives, it seemed they would. Severus assumed he would be alone for the rest of his life, that no one would accept his issues with sex. Lack of desire to have it, more like it.

But, Andy, did not get that with Ted. The Snatchers had ripped that from her, like killing her husband had been as easy as blowing out a candle. She would always love him. He would always be the love of her life, but she was so lonely after the wound seemed to scab over. It was not healed, it never would be, but it was not oozing and gaping anymore.

Severus believed there was no for him out there, surely after all he had done, even if someone else was out there like him. If someone else had no desire to do what he cared not to.

It wasn't that he had never done so. Or didn't know what it was. He did remember some of that night with Hermione and once Lucius had insisted that he ”just get over himself and enjoy it” with a French witch in Paris back when they were young. He remembered every single horrid detail of that time.

The weight of her on top of him, touching him in places that made him want to cringe, that did make him pull away. French wasn't something he had known much of at the time, but looking back she called him an old man with a worthless dick.

He had been twenty-three.

He stopped trying then, was that foolish? Surely it was. But, he was teaching students at that time who some of which he was less than ten years older than. And they knew it. They knew he was. They took advantage of that fact.

So he became cruel. He was going to put the fear of God into them, no better yet he was going to make them fear him. Lily was dead, Harry the only living piece of her was half Potter and tainted by the man. He had to lie to Lucius. The only person he could be truly honest with was Albus Dumbledore a man who became like a father to him, but he was surely never like the man’s son.

No, he was far too dark to be anything like a son to Albus Dumbledore. That was made clear fourteen years later when the man told him to kill him. He cared nothing for the soul of the man who saw him as a father. And why would he? Severus was just a worthless Slytherin piece of crap.

He was one of the damned, a marked death eater, his soul had long since been tainted from the day he spoke the words that caused Lily’s death. He deserved to do what he had to do to protect Harry and then he deserved to die.

Thankfully, Kreacher disagreed and saved him. The house elf was a creature with odd magic. They could not do most of the simple spells wizards could, and yet they were sometimes with the right will too, heal someone who was at the brink of death.

Andromeda, she wasn't the type of person who should love someone like him and yet she did. Wholeheartedly or as much as she was capable after Ted’s death.

She made Severus feel alive again, she made him feel like he was something worth loving, something worth putting effort into and he would be forever grateful for that.

They watched the sunset over Cokeworth, the dirty Slytherin half-blood and the pureblood witch from the once-great family. Happiness was not always like a fire under your skin, sometimes it was just a warmness in your heart. This weekend he would meet his daughter for the first time, and he hoped she would grow to care for him with time, because he already loved her with all of his heart. Rose, Teddy and Andy were his whole world.

***************

Severus Snape sat on a park bench smoking a cigarette. His own nerves being the cause of such action. It was either smoke or fidget like a child that had too much candy. Severus was not one for childlike behavior so smoking it was.

Hermione Jean Malfoy, it was odd to think of her as such, though if you would have told him they were together now long ago, he wouldn't have called you crazy. Passion of any kind could cross to the line, so effortlessly you might never believe you felt like you did before.

With Lily love had turned to scorn, when it came to him. Just as it scorn turned love for her when it came to Potter. Andy decades ago would have turned her wand on him without thought. She was married to a muggleborn, and he had been a death eater.

The Andromeda told him to put out his cigarette before Hermione saw it. Knowing the woman’s dislike of such things. He threw it to the ground and put it out with his boot. Hermione came closer, her hand holding Rose’s. The girl was a perfect mix of them.

Rose’s skin as pale as white sheets, though in the sunlight it looked pink. Her black curls wild in the wind, not unlike Andy’s or long-dead Bellatrix. Though the shine of them reminded him of his mother’s hair.

Her eyes coal-black, though even at her young age, spoke to her sharp mind as she took every detail of him in just as he did her. She was tall for her age, just as he had been. That was the only thing either had inherited from Tobias Snape.

Long limbs, sleeves of her jacket showing off her wrists, and her jeans showing off her ankles. Likely growing too fast for things to fit exactly as they should.

Hermione said something softly to her, he could not hear, but a small smile appeared on the child’s face.

Rose yanked her hand from her mother’s and she bolted over to him on her colt like legs. She stumbled nearly face planting in front of him. He reached out to catch her, but she caught herself before he could.

She gazed up at him with wonder that only a child could muster and said, ”Hello father, my name is Rose.”

Severus said words he never all the years of his life, ”Hello Rose, my name is Severus Snape and I am your dad. What would you like to do today?”

Black eyes met black eyes, father and daughter taking each other in. As if they both were making sure the other was actually truly real.

Rose smiled and said, ”uncle Harry once told me, my father, when I pressed him about you. Don't tell my mum I did she might be upset about that. But I just tell me about you. About your family, no ever does.”

Severus looked sheepishly at Andy, who just nodded and mouthed go on.

He told Rose, ”okay, have a seat and I will tell you a story”.

She sat down next to him, and he started telling her about his childhood, his own mother, Lily and everything he could think of. And so much unlike most children Rose soaked it up like a sponge. This was her father, her family and she finally got to meet him.

Hermione looked on from a distance, as Rose listened to her father, and Severus also got to know his daughter. Rose was getting the only thing she had ever wished for, her dad.

Not all families are the same and that's okay.


End file.
